


With Ink and Fire and Blood

by SpaceWall



Series: Ineffable Soulmate AUs [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Communication, Confessions, Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Established Relationship, F/M, Idiots in Love, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 14:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20427785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWall/pseuds/SpaceWall
Summary: Unlike humans, angels and demons don’t have soulmates. All of them... right?Anathema’s ability to see auras leads to unexpected revelations.





	With Ink and Fire and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> God I’m jetlagged and this is almost a week late and barely edited and I’m so sorry. Enjoy!

It’s Anathema who points it out. It’s been more than a year since the end of the world, and she and Aziraphale are sitting in a small French bistro near the British Museum, for no particular reason other than because they can. They both enjoy meeting from time to time just to keep in touch. Somehow, it makes the whole thing feel more real. Aziraphale is starting with the soup du jour- Lobster Bisque- when she asks, 

“So are you and Crowley the only angel-demon soulmate pairing, or are there others?”

It’s an easy mistake to make, Aziraphale supposes, but the truth is that Anathema should know better. She’s mentioned to him on more than one occasion that she can see auras, and this should allow her to see that his and Crowley’s tattoos are just that: a disguise to cover the fact that they don’t have marks and never will. It had only made sense to match each other, in the interests of stopping any coincidental matches with others. Then, later, it had made sense for other reasons that had very little to do with practicality and very much to do with their respective choices. 

He begins to explain about the tattoos, to ask if she can’t see soulmates- maybe humans can see auras rather differently than angels do?- but she cuts him off. 

“Of course I can see soulmates,” she explains, as if he’s an idiot, “which is why you needn’t bother lying to me. His is on his neck, and yours is here.” 

Rather uncoothly, she leans over the table to poke at his chest. Even though she’s never seen him naked in all her life, she manages to perfectly pinpoint where the snake that matches Crowley’s sits curled over his heart. 

In an instant, she convinces him that she’s telling the truth. “Can you see everyone’s?”

Her head shakes back and forth as she laughs. It’s the sound of someone unexpectedly discovering that they’re the expert in the room. The waiter brings her a starter salad and moves away. At the word ‘soulmates’ over polite dinner conversation, most good waitstaff know to flee the room. The bistro is so small that they’re the only people in this alcove, and the design of the room miraculously shields them from prying ears and eyes. 

“Not everyone’s. Not my own. I’ll never know who I’m matched to, only if that person is matched to anyone else. Not Adam’s either, but I can’t see his aura at all. I thought I didn’t see yours and Crowley’s when we first met, but I must have been more concussed from the accident than I thought, since it’s certainly there now.”

Anathema’s words give him a very convenient timeline of when, exactly, his and Crowley’s marks changed, but he does not say anything to her on the matter. Nor does he say anything on the subject of her own mark, the traces of love that flicker across her stomach and the back of Newton’s head. They will have to make do with the similarity of their images, just like the rest of the world. Aziraphale suspects they will muddle by just fine. 

Unlike most of his kind, Aziraphale does not believe in the automatic sanctity of soulmates. Instead, he holds the rather more pragmatic- he feels- belief that if She had wanted all humans to marry their soulmates, She would have done away with all this pictoral nonsense and allowed all of them to see like angels. As it is, the differences between marks are sometimes so infinitesimally small that the human eye can hardly see them. In point of fact, Aziraphale and Crowley’s marks are not quite identical either. There’s just a smidgen more ink in Aziraphale’s tail, though no human could ever tell that. 

Since neither angels nor demons have marks, their views on the matter are informed by this fact. Angels assume that because they aren’t marked, they aren’t allowed romantic or sexual love. Demons assume the same, but choose to flaunt what they see as a dramatic breach of Her rules at every opportunity. Like everything else in their existences, Crowley and Aziraphale are exceptions to the rules. Because of his belief that the marks are guidelines, really, Aziraphale has always been happy to have sex when it suited him. It’s Crowley’s un-demonly commitment that scared him, before. In spite of every other demon that fucked like it made the world go ‘round, Crowley is incredibly emotionally attached. That, more than anything, is what scared Aziraphale. It took him centuries to come to terms with loving a non-soulmate, and being loved in turn as in all the ways a younger, more conventional Aziraphale could never have expected. 

Thus, he finds, he can’t tell Crowley that they’re soulmates. It would ruin everything, and what’s more, it’s probably all a mistake anyways. Adam returned his body, and could easily have made this happen through sheer force of willpower. The boy was- is?- the antichrist, after all. Whether or not this makes the match any less real never really factors into his decision making. 

On the other hand, though, it’s Crowley. Aziraphale doesn’t like lying to him, even by omission, and he knows that this sort of thing matters to Crowley. It validates the depth of the feeling between them, and Crowley’s own humanness. More than that, it validates that they really are their own side. No angel or demon has this. Just them. Sharing is, Aziraphale knows, a necessity. 

So that’s the dilemma. He cannot tell, he can’t not tell. Basically, Aziraphale hates the whole situation. In the end, over the course of more than six months, he ends up back where he started. Well, more accurately, he ends up in a different restaurant- Thai- in a different city- Cardiff- but with the same company. 

“Absolutely not!” Anathema snaps, squishing a piece of tofu between her chopsticks. She’s here to meet with a local coven, Aziraphale’s here because Crowley has accused him of being a homebody. 

“You started this,” Aziraphale argues persuasively. “If you’d never told me, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“No,” rebuts Anathema, “if I hadn’t told you, you wouldn’t have been playing with a full deck of cards. Once I knew, a thing I couldn’t prevent myself from doing, I had an ethical obligation to inform you.”

“You don’t tell everyone!”

“Not everyone is a member of a species that genetically doesn’t have soulmates!”

She’s right, but, “you didn’t know that at the time.”

Everyone in the restaurant is looking at them. Aziraphale can feel himself blushing, and he can see Anathema’s posture shifting with shame and embarrassment. Eventually, she puts down her chopsticks and says, 

“It won’t mean as much coming from me as it will from you. What you have to say matters to him. But I’ll tell him if you’re really that scared. Not because I owe you, but because you’re my friend. Fair?”

Fair as it’s likely to get, at any rate. Aziraphale reaches across the table to shake her hand. Fortunately, the entire restaurant suddenly finds their own meals very interesting. 

\--

Anathema doesn’t really talk to Crowley. Sure, Aziraphale’s good company, or at least, company that knows good place to eat whenever she comes to London, but Crowley is, frankly, a little scary. Anathema is more than familiar with the occult, but there’s something unpredictable about Crowley in particular. If he were just scary and evil, that would be one thing, but he’s not. Instead, he’s got a terrifyingly opaque moral code that nobody seems to really understand, except perhaps him and maybe Aziraphale on good days. Somehow, the idea that there is a logic behind what he does is far, far worse than the idea that there isn’t anyway. Maybe it’s because he’s the sort of person she thinks she should have been when she was a professional descendent, taking direction and then always finding a way to do what he feels is right anyhow. Honestly, Anathema doesn’t really want to dig into it too much, so she pulls him up in her contacts and taps against his number.

Being of chaos that he is, Crowley picks up partway through the first ring. His hand must’ve been resting on the answer button, and indeed, he sounds about as high strung as Anathema expects from someone who does that sort of thing. 

“Crowley,” she cuts him off, before he can finish whatever semi-logical worry is half way out of his mouth, “I have to tell you something important.”

She lays it out as gently as she can, imagining that she’s speaking to a human friend, not someone who could literally wipe her off the planet by thinking really hard about it. Not that his moral code- or his Aziraphale- would allow that, probably, but she’d rather not have to worry about it if she doesn’t have to. Once, when she was younger and stupider, she’d told a friend that their parents weren’t really soulmates. She’s never really forgiven herself for the divorce and general chaos her words had caused. Sure, they hadn’t been soulmates, but did it really matter that the old rock-climbing scar in the middle of his mark obscured a minor difference, as long as they loved each other? Anathema didn’t know then, and now that she has to live with the same uncertainty as everyone else, she certainly doesn’t. Not that she thinks Aziraphale would have been able to keep it from her if she and Newton hadn’t been soulmates, but there will always be a degree of mystery for them that Anathema doesn’t have with anyone else. 

Crowley lets her talk, explaining what she sees, and how she hadn’t seen it before, and how she thinks that it’s probably because of Adam. After Anathema finally, finally runs out of words, they’re both silent on the line. 

“You’ve already told Aziraphale,” he says eventually. With his tone, Anathema can tell it’s not a question. “What did he say?” And there’s the question. 

“He told me that angels and demons don’t have soulmates.”

Crowley’s response is an audible sigh. “And you’re absolutely sure you didn’t see marks on either of us when we first met?”

Anathema’s memories of that interaction are sort of fuzzy, but, “I’m sure Aziraphale didn’t have one. I remember him offering me a ride and thinking, ‘I’m not sure I want to get into a car with a strange man with no soulmate,’ but I also thought it might mean he was my soulmate, since I can’t see my own mark. Then I realized the two of you were soulmates at the air base.”

Crowley sighs audibly again. She can picture him, probably lounging dramatically, long legs sprawled, holding his phone in one hand and running the other through his hair. In Anathema’s imagination, Crowley is always sprawled somewhere. It’s less a reflection on his actual posture than it is on his personality. 

“Let me tell you something,” he says, eventually, “and don’t go off on me about telling Aziraphale. I’ll tell him when he’s back in London.” She waits for the other shoe to drop. Crowley does not disappoint. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, after. His laugh is bitter. 

“What the fuck do you have to be sorry for?”

\--

Aziraphale knows something is wrong when Anathema never calls his hotel room to tell him what became of her conversation with Crowley. She’s been a loyal friend to him, and he can’t imagine her forgetting. And yet the phone stays still and silent. He goes back to London early in the morning, six hours before he planned to, to seek out Crowley himself. 

A part of Aziraphale has wondered if she hasn’t called because she didn’t tell Crowley anything, but the second he opens Crowley’s door, even a crack, that fear is assuaged.

Normally, Crowley lives in a world of order. The bookshop is where all the chaos in their lives makes its home, succumbing before the awesome modernist emptiness Crowley favours. And yet, when Aziraphale lets himself in, calling Crowley’s name softly so as not to startle him, what he finds is pure disorganization. Books, most of them Aziraphale’s own, are strewn across the floor. Pictures of paintings and various historical documents, presumably printed from the internet, are taped to the walls. It looks like the home of a madman. 

Carefully, so as not to disturb anything or, worse, step on any of the books, Aziraphale sneaks his way into Crowley’s bedroom. He’s there, lying sprawled like a corpse over the bed. At first, he thinks Crowley is sleeping, but when Aziraphale gets close enough to look over him properly, he can see that Crowley’s eyes are open. His glasses are sitting unfolded on the bedside table, and even in this moment of madness, Aziraphale treasures this rare opportunity to see Crowley’s face unshielded. 

“What day is it?” Crowley asks. Unusually, he doesn’t lunge for his glasses. Instead, as Aziraphale perches himself gingerly on the edge of the bed, he folds his arms under his head. He’s trimmed his hair a little, making their shared mark more visible than usual. Aziraphale wants to kiss him. 

Aziraphale tells him the date, adding, “so I suppose Anathema told you then.”

Crowley nods, just a little. “And she didn’t tell you. You’re much too calm.”

He must know that Anathema told him that they’re soulmates, so, “what didn’t she tell me, Crowley?”

Getting his legs under him, Crowley pushes himself up to sit against the headboard. He pats the space beside him until Aziraphale scoots forward to sit beside him. From here, he can finally see the through line of all the artwork Crowley’s selected. All of it depicts angels- or, usually archangels. Above the door is Burne-Jones’s ‘Christ Enthroned in the Heavenly Jerusalem’. Around it are dozens more pieces, usually depicting angels falling. All of this only makes Aziraphale more confused. 

“It’s funny,” announces Crowley, mostly to himself, “the amount of time humans spend trying to render it, for an event none of them remember.”

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything. He knows Crowley will get to the point when he’s ready. 

“They can’t remember it, of course- they weren’t there. But we were. All of us were. Every angel. Every demon. We all remember it, except for when we don’t.” He wants to ask, so badly, but he doesn’t. “Having conducted some surveys, and having read- read, me! – some sources, I feel qualified to tell you exactly which angels and demons remember what it was really like before the fall.”

He can’t hold his tongue any longer. “What it was really like?”

Crowley turns his head to look at Aziraphale. “We lived a great deal of time and not-time before the fall. You must have spoken to someone then, worked with people. Who did you know?”

And Aziraphale finds that when he opens his mouth to answer, he can’t. He can remember being a soldier, can remember his orders and his birth, but he cannot remember a single person he interacted with during that time. He should. He knows he should, but it’s all fuzzy. Who was his commander? It must have been Gabriel or Michael, even then, but- why is it so fuzzy?

“I don’t think I knew anyone.”

Crowley’s always been his first friend. He knows that. 

“Of course you did,” Crowley says, as though Aziraphale’s a little stupid. “Everybody knows somebody. You just don’t remember. And I don’t blame you. Nobody does, except for me. Well, and the others, of course.” He gestures towards another printed painting. This one seems like it’s probably supposed to be Michael and Lucifer, but the resemblance is tenuous at best and insulting at worst. 

Aziraphale knows what Crowley is implying. The several, equally unbelievable things he’s implying. 

“Are you saying…”

Crowley ran his hands through his hair, messing it up. “I’m saying that She changed all of our memories. Well, all of your memories. Mine are… clearer, because of what I am- what I was, I think.”

It’s an unthinkable accusation. Aziraphale knew he should be defending Her, speaking to Her dignity and integrity. But She’s been gone for a long time, now, and Crowley is here, with him. Crowley loves him. Crowley wouldn’t lie about something like this. Not to mention the fact that Crowley’s so obviously devastated by all of this. Aziraphale has never seen him so upset. 

“What are you?” He breathes. The answer is already on the tip of his tongue, and when Crowley simply points at one of the paintings, he gives it voice. “Raphael.”

Crowley slumps over, burying his head in Azirpahale’s shoulder. He can’t say it, Aziraphale knows. The fallen are forbidden from such things. This, surely, is a second reason for the strange decoration. To allow Crowley to convey all this. Aziraphale presses a kiss to his forehead, surprised by faint trembling and cold sweat beneath his lips. 

“Thank you for telling me,” says Aziraphale against Crowley’s skin. Crowley presses closer. The confession has taken something out of him. “If you can’t say anything else, I don’t mind.”

Crowley shakes his head. “No angel, you need to know. If we’re doing this-“ his hand comes up to wave vaguely through the air, “then you need to know everything.”

The story, as Crowley spins it, is something like this: 

Once upon a time, every angel had a soulmate. From the highest archangel to the lowest principality, they all had a unique touch on their graces that showed their destined love- or loves, sometimes. Then came the fall. Angels refused to fight for risk of hurting their soulmate. Michael, who knew who her soulmate was and didn’t care, went to their Mother. She asked Her to help with this effort against Her rebellious children. She was supposed to break the marks of those who were sundered. Instead, She hid all of them. Her eldest remaining son, Raphael/Crowley, had not understood this decision. He’d badgered her for explanations, demanding to know why She’d taken away his capacity to find the match for the mark he remembered so well. In the end, She had been tired of his questions. Crowley/Raphael thought later that he’d reminded Her too much of Lucifer. They had, once, been very alike in character and form. Regardless of the reason, the outcome was the same. He’d been cast out to join his brother, and everyone else, angel and demon alike, had been made to forget what they’d had. Even now, Crowley alleges, the impact of this remains. 

“How long have I had this mark?” He asks, guiding Aziraphale’s hand up to rest on his neck. Somehow, now that he knows this mark is real, has always been at least a little real, it feels like a far more intimate contact. 

He had the mark by the ark, Aziraphale is sure of that much. He’d gotten it to distract the humans after- but no, he had it before that, didn’t he? But why have it in the garden? There’d been no humans to distract, then. None that had seen Crowley as human, anyhow. But surely Aziraphale would have asked about that. 

“I don’t know.”

Crowley’s hand is still holding his, long fingers pressing Aziraphale’s fingertips to the worn skin of this form. “I got it as soon as I fell, angel. I didn’t want to forget what it looked like in a corporation. Lucifer did it for me. Marked it into my skin with ink and fire and blood.”

Crowley did this from love of a person he’d never met. A person who, by the will of an ill-controlled child, Aziraphale supplanted. He feels sick at the thought. Crowley’s dedication should earn him the person he was destined for at the beginning of time. Instead he has Aziraphale. Stomach roiling, he jerks his hand out of Crowley’s. Crowley lets him go. 

“Why did you let me get it?” Aziraphale’s memory may not be what he once thought it was, but he’s certain they discussed this more than once. Crowley had permitted this. Encouraged it, even. Why do something like that when you know you have a real soulmate out there?

Crowley snorts. “I think that’s obvious.” It isn’t. It really, really isn’t. Aziraphale’s face must betray how confused he is. Some days, he wishes he’d been assigned a less expressive form, because Crowley can read him like a book at times like this. Rolling his eyes dramatically- a feat, for someone with snake’s eyes- Crowley says, “because I wanted it to be true, angel. I wanted you to be mine.”

Oh. Well then. Aziraphale can feel himself blushing. Crowley is smiling, wide and excited. He telegraphs his intentions so clearly that it’s no surprise when his lips press against Aziraphale’s, slow at first, and then very much not. 

They’re mostly naked and under the covers when Aziraphale thinks to ask, “why all the books?”

Crowley surfaces for a second to reply, “I needed to know if there was any chance you already knew and didn’t want it to be true.”

They both have their anxieties, Aziraphale knows. This is more like one of his than Crowley’s, but such things are not always linear or logical. 

Because it always merits saying, he says, “I do want this. I’m honored to think of you as mine.”

Crowley’s eyes are brimming with emotion, and his body is taut against Aziraphale’s with the thrill of revelation. By mutual agreement, they both return to the task at hand. After all, they have plenty of time to work out the finer points, but their reservation at 7:30 will only come around once.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Christ Enthroned in the Heavenly Jerusalem’ is a mosaic by the artist Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. It depicts Jesus flanked by archangels in arches. There are six places, but only five archangels. One, ostensibly Lucifer, is missing. Uriel, Michael, Gabriel and two others you don’t care about are pictured. Raphael is not. It’s a neat piece that I do recommend Googling.
> 
> I do intend to work more in Good Omens, and even more with Soulmates as a concept there, but I’m not sure when or what or how yet, so Stay Tuned.


End file.
